Fiction: The Evil Possum Vs Godzilla Part 2!

 Still haven't got anything but movie reviews done this week, so here's the second part of my recovered Evil Possum adventure. Incidentally, the monsters here include Geryon from Greek mythology, who is completely confusing to describe if you don't know the myths, plus another from the Cthulhu mythos and an early version of the eurypterids. Yes, this is absolutely as far as I got, though I'm pretty sure I must have written a longer version originally since there's a line I remember (and reused) that isn't here. Here's an extra link for the adventures index.

            It was a grim scene on the asphalt plain.  Four more large monsters were dead, along with scores of the ants.  The overturned wreck of No-Hands' halftrack lay smoldering  on the pavement.  It was surrounded almost completely by a wall of slain giant ants.  A giant gila monster also lay dead a few feet from the halftrack.  Skid marks showed where the halftrack had swerved to avoid the monster, just before falling on its side.  An abandoned 2 mm gatling gun stood on its tripod next to the wreck.  Thousands of spent shell casings and the firing tubes for four panzerfutz single-use antitank weapons were strewn about.

            A trail of more shell casings and dead ants led away from the scene of the wreck.  One could thus follow the trail from the wreck to the concrete outcropping where No-Hands was currently blasting away at a giant sea gooseberry with an antitank rifle.  The rifle was as long as he was tall, and had to be supported with a bipod.  two questing tentacles were blown off.  Sparks erupted as volley of shots pierced the monster's globular body.  Several of the flickering lights under its hide went out.  The monster shuddered and drew back, but the damage wasn't great enough to keep it back for long.  "Mr. O'Leary!" No-hands shouted.  "Come here!"

            Nick ran up to No-Hands.  "What do you need?"

            "I need you to get on hands and knees and touch your chin to the ground," No-Hands said.  Nick, being both naive and unimaginative, complied without question.  No-Hands rested the bipod of the rat's rump, set the rifle for fully automatic fire, and let fly.  With the extra elevation Nick provided, he was able to fire into the monster's open mouth.  Sparks flew, tentacles fell and lights flickered.  The creature slowly descended to the ground, where it collapsed like a deflated balloon.

            "Ack!  Wedgie!" Nick exclaimed.

             No-Hands cast the empty rifle aside.  Nick followed him back down the sloping concrete face.  As they reached the bottom, No-Hands looked straight up, and froze.  “DUCK!” he shouted.

            Nicholas O’Leary handed him a little stuffed duck.

            No-Hands slapped away the toy and tackled Nick.  They tumbled into a fissure together, just as a giant bird’s talons closed where the two had been standing.  Anja ran to them and thrust a rocket launcher into her husband’s hand.  No-Hands fired at the departing bird, and hissed when the shot went wide.

            “Oh,” Nick said, gazing at the bird.  He scratched his head.  “That doesn’t look like a duck to me.  More like a great big two-headed eagle thing.”

            Anja quickly reloaded the rocket launcher.  No-Hands used that rocket and two more after it an eight-foot-long scorpion-like creature crawling toward their position.  Each shot caused some damage, destroying compound eyes and damaging one of its pincers.  However, the scorpion had scores of eyes and three more pincers to spare.  It and eight other monsters continued to close in.  The scorpion clacked, scraped, buzzed and whirred threateningly with an assemblage of mouthparts that looked like they had been designed for revenge on every gourmand who ever dismembered a lobster.  No-Hands used the next two rockets on a one-eyed creature that looked like an ambulatory fried egg.  One blew a crater in its gooey body, but failed to do any meaningful damage.  The second rocket blew out the central eye, killing the creature.  With his last four shots, No-Hands killed a fish with legs and sent a dinosaur-like creature limping away.  "We are out of rockets," Anja announced.  "All we have left is your 4 mm grenade launcher."

            “In that case, it is time for us to part,” No-Hands said.  His wife grimaced.  “I will carry out the contingency plan alone.  I will go forth and kill as many monsters as I can before I am killed or captured.  If they choose to capture me rather than kill me, I will gain access to their ship and thus have a chance to carry out my mission.  Whatever the outcome, the chances of my returning are low.  I will not let your life be put on the line with mine.”

            “The choice is not yours to make,” Anja said.  “Wherever you go, I will follow.”

            “Where I am going, you must not follow!” No-Hands snarled.

            “I will, nevertheless.”

            “Why do you insist on doing the irrational?”

            “Because I love you.”

            No-Hands gazed into her eyes and sighed.  “I love you, too,” he said, caressing her face with his left hand.  Then he clenched his hand into a fist and punched his wife unconscious.

            Nick watched in shock.  What shocked him most was that he thought he saw a single tear welling up in the assassin’s eye.  When No-Hands saw him watching, Nick tried to look like he was examining the ground.  “You!” No-Hands snarled.  “You can come with me if you like!”

            No-Hands emerged from the crevasse alone.  The way he moved exuded determination and confidence, and a clinically murderous gleam was in his eye.  At the sight of him, all the monsters lurched back.   It was a terrifying sight that few beings had beheld and even fewer had lived to remember: No-Hands looked angry. 

            A giant with three torsos was first to strike.  It had a club in each set of hands, and it struck at No-Hands with two clubs at once.  When the caved-in section of concrete where No-Hands had been standing proved devoid of  flattened possum, the three heads looked at each other in confusion.  Then one of them heard a whisper in its ear: "I say, are you looking for me?"  No-Hands then bit said ear and leaped to the next torso.  He fired three grenade at the already-injured head as it turned, taking out both eyes.  The blinded torso blindly  clubbed its neighbor, while No-Hands jumped to the  next torso.  He shot that one in the neck, and then clambered down a forest of body hair to the ground.  As a parting shot, he fired the last grenade in the magazine under the giant's big toe nail.  As he dashed away, the giant was hopping on one foot.  One torso clutched its throat in an attempt to staunch the bleeding, another clutched its injured foot, and another continued to flail blindly at the air, the ground and its neighbors with its club.

            No-Hands reloaded as he ran.  Suddenly, he found himself in shadow.  He dropped the grenade launched as the two-headed bird came swooping in from behind.  The bird lifted him into the air.  It took the creature a moment to realize that the possum was not in its talons, but clinging to one of its legs.  Right about the time it had this revelation, No-Hands set its tail on fire.  The bird rapidly descended to the ground and began hopping around and beating its wings against its tail feathers in an attempt to put out the flames.  It succeeded in spreading the flames to its pinions.  The bird ran away in the direction of the nearest  stream.

            As soon as the bird touched the ground, No-Hands leaped off and ran for his grenade launcher.  He found the weapon guarded by a puma-sized, saber-toothed creature.  Its face was not unlike No-Hands' own.  It grinned and chuckled as it reached for him.  But then, the giant hit it with a club.  While the creature was stunned, No-Hands grabbed his grenade launcher.  He fired the three shots in the magazine into the monster's head.

            A brontosaurus came at him from behind.  There was no time to  reload.  As the huge head descended to swallow him, No-Hands ducked under its chin and caught hold of its throat.  In a few savage seconds, he tore out its throat with claws and teeth.

            No-Hands swiftly reloaded.  As he finished, the ground shook with the footsteps of a new arrival.  He looked up and saw nothing- except for a bullet that seemed to hover unsteadily above the ground.  "Back for more?" No-Hands said.  He emptied the grenade launcher at the monster.  Two of his shots struck the bullet, driving it deeper into the monster's transparent flesh.  The monster fell once again.  It landed in a stream, parting the water with its form.  This time, it didn't get up.

            No-Hands reloaded his weapon yet again, with the last two grenades from one bandoleer and three more from the other.  As he closed the grenade launcher, his left ear twitched.  A fraction of a second later, a pincer as long as his body came down like a hammer.  The scorpion had crept up behind him.   However, it wasn't quite fast enough to catch No-Hands.  The possum dodged the blow and jumped onto the damaged pincer.  He fired his grenades at the scorpion's eyes while clinging to the pincer  with his metal hand and his flesh-and-blood foot.  The grenades destroyed more eyes.  One of the pea-sized eyes popped out of its socket and dangled by a nerve from the right side of its face.

            When the grenade launcher was empty, No-Hands dropped it.  He needed to hang on with both hands as the scorpion shook its claw in an effort to dislodge him.  He jumped to another pincer, which was smaller and less strong.  He crawled along the limb like a three-legged sloth, unfazed by the scorpion's angry shaking.  The scorpion jabbed at him with its tail; he dodged the blow by letting go with his metal hand and swinging to the side.  The scorpion shook its pincer, throwing  him into the air and toward the clashing mouthparts.  He landed feet-first on a flattened mandible and bounced back to the small pincer.  From there, he swung to the big pincer.  Finally, he caught hold of the dangling optic nerve.  He climbed onto the  scorpion's face, swinging once to avoid another blow from the stinger. 

            No-Hands stufed his bandoleer into the empty eye socket. The stinger struck again and snagged his  jacket.  He shed the jacket to get free, only to go sliding off the carapace.  He caught hold of the optic nerve with a desperate grasp of his metal hand, and cme to a halt just above the mouth parts.  The nerve jerked a little further out.  No-Hands hauled himself up just in time to avoid being caught  by a set of snapping mandibles.

            As he climbed back onto the carapace, he heard two angry squawks behind him.  He didn't turn around; there was no need to.  The two-headed bird hopped  eagerly toward the scorpion.  No-Hands pulled the pin out of a large hand grenade and tossed it into the eye socket.  He then vaulted over the cluster of compound eyes, narrowly escaping the bird's snapping beaks.  Before the bird could strike again, the grenades went off.  A puff of smoke and flame erupted from the carapace.  Its brain destroyed, the scorpion began to writhe  convulsively.  The tail swung forward, stabbing the bird in  the chest.  The bird screamed hideously.  It managed to pull itself free of the barbed stinger, but that only added to the damage.   The tail struck one last time, transfixing the bird's right head.  The remaining head let out a mournful shriek, and then died.

            No-Hands leaped to the ground and ran for the ship.  His way was blocked by a wall of flame that suddenly sprang from the ground.  He turned around,  only to see another wall of flame shoot up behind him.  He looked to the left, and saw the cause.  A dragon with a broken wing was advancing toward him.  It was the same one he had knocked out of the sky earlier.  The dragon tilted its head back and shot an arc of flame over No-Hands' head.  It swung its head from side to side, creating another wall of fire.  No-Hands was trapped in a triangle of flame, with the monster at the apex.

            The dragon spoke, in a banal voice that was clearly not its own: "Surrender, and you and your companions will not be harmed."

            "Return to the world from whence you came," No-Hands responded, "and you shall not die."  He then dashed up a gently tilted chunk of concrete and leaped into the air.  At the height of his ascent, he pulled a hidden switch in his mechanicla leg.  A 6 mm grenade flew out of the heel and into the dragon's eye.  The recoil sent him flying backwards over the wall of flame.

            No-Hands could see the circular spaceship, looming over the concrete just a few hundred yards away.  Nothing stood between him and his goal- or so it seemed.  He raced over the concrete plain.  Halfway there, he passed a deep hole in the concrete.  In the matter of a second, a ten-foot-tall mutant flamingo rose from the hole.  No-Hands stopped and turned, his fur bristling.  As the bird's gaping bill descended, he drew a revolver.  A single shot echoed across the plain.

            The bird flew at top speed bck to the ship.

            Anja awoke with a scream.